He noted a small dark spot that had nearly been washed away. Putting the stocking to his nose, he smelled the tracings of his own blood. Nikolai had been in enough encounters over the years to know the smell of Marius’s blood. Like the time Marius had been gored in the leg by a wild boar. This time he’d been gored in the heart by a wild minx.
“You smile, Your Highness? Not the reaction I expected.”
“She changed clothes and got rid of them before she returned home last night.”
“Yes. As we both know, she was well-prepared. Or she had an accomplice.”
“Exactly. Ask Lady Lucinda to come in here.”
Nikolai nodded to Riker, who stood at attention just inside the door, waiting for orders. He then left and brought back with him the odious woman Marius wished he’d never laid eyes on. And yet, she had information he needed.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Your servant, Arabelle. How long has she been in your employ?”
“Let me see now… I’d say about eleven or twelve years.”
Marius gulped back the sudden rage that flared in his chest. Keeping his voice cool, he asked, “She has been living in this hovel for twelve years?”
“Oh, no, Your Highness. I graciously took her in as a young orphan, for she would’ve starved on the streets had I not welcomed her into our home. My heart broke at seeing the poor girl all alone in the world.”
“I’ll bet,” mumbled Nikolai.
Marius ignored him.
“So you banished her to this shack…out of the goodness of your heart.”
The woman visibly swallowed, eyes widening. “No, Your Highness. She chose to live out here. I offered her a warm bed in my own home. But after a few years, she wished to live outside the mansion. Who was I to tell her she could not? I treat my servants with dignity and respect, Your Highness. I give them as much freedom as I can.”
“Of course you do. Tell me, who are Arabelle’s friends? Other servants in the house?”
“Well, I don’t know. She’s not the friendly sort. A touch wild, if you ask me.”
Marius understood that, no doubt.
“How about someone in the town?” asked Nikolai.
The poor woman looked like a goldfish gulping air as she tried to find an answer that would please her interrogators.
“Pardon, Your Highness,” said Drusilla at the door. “I know who Arabelle spends time with. A lot of time.”
Marius and Nikolai exchanged a glance.
“Then tell me,” commanded Marius.
“I see her at the blacksmith’s shop quite often when I’m in town at the dressmaker’s or the haberdasher’s.” The woman’s mischievous smile made Marius want to hurtle her across the room. “Of course, many women go in and out of the blacksmith shop. But Arabelle goes more than most.”
A searing flame burned through his blood. Clenching his fists, he said in a low, even tone. “Nikolai. Gather your Legionnaires. We go to the blacksmith in Sylus.”
Chapter Eight
Marius and Nikolai rode through the village of Sylus with a dozen Legionnaires in their wake. If she was hiding in the town, she’d certainly see they were on her trail. But Marius couldn’t control his need to find her in the most expedient way possible—with speed and force.
Marius slowed Erebus with a slight tug on the reins, unfamiliar with the village of Sylus and how the shops were laid out. Actually, he was unfamiliar with all of the villages. Of course, he visited from time to time. He felt it important that the royal prince make an appearance, to offer some aid and donate sovereigns to the town coffer. His mother often scolded him for offering charity and for allowing the peasants to see their prince in a more approachable manner.
Distance from them holds power, my son. They must not see you cavorting in town as one of them.
A warning he often ignored. His mother was always concerned with the order of their world. But Marius never could fathom the need for the monarchy to rule with cold tyranny. He believed a monarch could reign with a firm but just hand.
“Riker,” he called back. “Lead the way.”
The militant sergeant trotted ahead of them, guiding them past the shops. The baker hurriedly closed his door. A peasant woman grabbed her child and ducked into the butchery. Within five seconds, there wasn’t a man, woman, or child left on the street. Yes, they feared the vampires.
They passed a hitching post for horses and carts where a scrappy little boy held a bucket of black paint next to a watering trough. At the sound of the horses’ hooves, the boy swiveled and watched the royal party ride by. The boy didn’t run like the others but simply watched, unmoving from his post as he patted one horse along the neck.
Riker led them beyond the row of village shops and came to a stop a short way out, where a long house with two chimneys unfurled smoke. One was obviously for the man’s forge, the other for his home. An old hound lounged on the doorstep, sleeping in the shade of the overhang.
Clang, clang, clang.
The distinct pounding of metal on metal echoed from behind the house. Nikolai led the way through a side gate, the clanging noise steady and continuous. There was an overhang on the backside of the forge, the double doors open, allowing the heat to escape the inner shop.
Marius waited as Nikolai approached the man with hot iron and a hammer in his hands.
“Blacksmith!”
The man, whose back was to them, stopped his hammering and slowly swiveled to face them. He left the hot iron on the anvil but kept his hammer in hand.
“Come forward, blacksmith,” ordered Nikolai.
The brawny figure in shadow with the fiery furnace at his back took two steps forward, but not out into the enclosure where Marius, Nikolai, and the Legionnaires formed a semi-circle. Marius noted he wasn’t as young as Arabelle, but he wasn’t old, either. A human male in his prime. Was this man her lover as the Pervis girl had insinuated? The bitter taste of envy churned in his gut.
“A step farther, if you will,” said Nikolai, sounding neither threatening nor disarming.
The smith’s eyes widened, his pupils dilated, and his pulse pounded harder when his gaze landed on Marius. Though he tried to hide it well, he was angry at the sight of him. Enraged.
“Why do I have the pleasure of the royal prince and his army at my door?” he asked gruffly.
Marius scoffed. “This is not my army, blacksmith. If I brought them all, you would certainly know the difference.”
The Legionnaires numbered in the hundreds at the Glass Tower, the thousands across the Varis Empire. His father kept the army at full force, regardless of the seemingly endless season of peace among the kingdoms. But the people would never know how vast the Varis army truly was. Legionnaires moved in smaller numbers.
The smith, dark countenance assessing, asked Nikolai, “Why have you come?”
“Only to ask a few questions,” he replied.
But it was Marius who started the interrogation. “Do you know a peasant girl named Arabelle?”
The smith’s fist white-knuckled around the hammer. Marius’s gaze barely flicked to the change that would be imperceptible for most humans to catch. If he lied now, he’d know for certain this man would be his prisoner for a less comfortable interrogation.
“Yes,” he said, expression unreadable. “I know her.”
His laconic answer told Marius more than the man knew. He was attempting to be cooperative so he had some chance of escaping this predicament.
Sweat dampened the smith’s shirt and face from the forge. His brawny chest rose and fell with the slight exertion of his efforts. However, Marius could smell a twinge of fear and anger rolling in the air. He honed in on the man’s heartbeat, a steadily increasing drum thrumming faster by the second.
“How well do you know her?” asked Nikolai.
The smith’s mouth ticked up on one side. An expression that told Marius he knew her quite well. He willed his feet to stay in place, to keep from moving across the open space
and punching the man to the ground. Though the smith might look a match for him in breadth, he was not. Marius was at full strength and could kill the man with a blow. With the vision of the smith’s hands on Arabelle, the temptation to do just that pulled at his core.
“Answer, blacksmith,” commanded Marius.
The smith stepped forward again, still clutching his hammer. “I know her. She is a friend.”
“I see. And do you know where she is now?”
“Obviously you don’t. Or you wouldn’t be here.” His smile broadened, revealing a gold-capped tooth on one side. A Legionnaire hissed. Riker stepped forward to lay hands on him.
“Hold!” Marius commanded with one hand in the air.
A brazen act of defiance to have capped his tooth with the one mineral that was poisonous to vampire blood.
“Blacksmith,” started Marius, no longer trying to keep the menace from his voice. “Tell me where she is, and we will spare you.”
He laughed, a mirthless sound. “Do you think I care so little for her and so much for myself?” He took another step forward, toward Marius this time. “That’s what’s wrong with you blood-sucking vampires. You put your own lives on such a high pedestal, you can’t imagine a being that might value something more than life.”
The tension straining among the circle of immortals drew taut, but Marius would not give the command to attack. Not yet.
“And what is it that you value so much…more than your own life?”
If the man’s expression was dark before, that was nothing compared to the storm raging across his scowling face now.
“I value freedom, the kind that we might have one day. I value hope, an emotion no monster could ever imagine, that flares bright in the heart of every peasant beaten to the ground like dogs under the Varis monarchy.” He said the last with utter disgust. Enough to make another Legionnaire hiss at his imminent threat. “I value the Black Lily”—his voice had lightened when he said her name—“our resistance which inspires our people with the vision of a new world, where liberty and justice reign, not this pit of hell wherein fear and dread guide every man’s step as he leaves his family at home alone to work in the fields, every woman as she walks alone on the path to the woods, every child who prays to an unhearing God that his parents will live another day.”
Speechless, Marius tried to absorb this picture of the Varis Empire that was so vastly different than his own.
“Tell us where she is,” ordered Nikolai, “or you will wish you were dead when we’re through.”
“You can all rot in Hell. Starting with you.” The smith pointed his hammer at Marius and lunged. He only made one step before four Legionnaires were on him. A bone cracked, and the smith bellowed, releasing the hammer.
“Stop!” Marius approached the confined man between the soldiers. “Don’t break another bone. I want him intact.”
Nikolai stepped forward. “You have another plan of action?”
“Yes.”
The smith spat blood from his mouth to the ground. “It doesn’t matter what your plan is, Your Highness. She is smarter than you. And she won’t miss your heart next time.”
No doubt the smith knew of his attempted assassination. The man wasn’t trying to hide anything.
“Take him to the palace dungeon. And, Riker?”
The sergeant in charge below Nikolai stood at attention before him.
“Your Highness?”
“I do not want anyone else in the palace to know of this prisoner. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Your Highness. It will be done.”
Riker and the Legionnaires left, dragging the struggling blacksmith with them.
“What is this other plan?” asked Nikolai.
“The boy in town. The one at the watering trough. We must find him.”
“The boy? You think he may know something.”
The bucket of black paint. The black lily. Defiance in his young eyes.
Marius marched toward his own mount. “I’m sure of it.”
Chapter Nine
Arabelle sat on one of the logs surrounding the fire pit outside the woodhouse, thinking of Henry—her first and only lover. This had been his place, deep in Larkin Wood, the nearby brook gurgling by. He’d opted to live on his own rather than depend on the meager earnings of serving an aristocrat. Arabelle had met him at Deek’s one day, when he revealed a gold nugget he’d found that was as big as a frog. Knowing the smithy was familiar with all kinds of metals, he’d brought it to him to inspect and verify. Deek had never seen gold but knew of its properties.
The Legionnaires had wiped the land of the element a century earlier, so the people were told.
“So they’re not immortal,” Arabelle had said to Henry during their first night in his bed.
Thus the idea of the Black Lily came to life. It was upon Henry’s death two years ago, after she found him on his floor in a pool of his own blood, right next to a Legionnaire—also dead, with the hilt of a dagger protruding from his chest—that she began to put her plan into play. With Deek’s assistance, Henry had fashioned a steel dagger tipped in gold. The very one Arabelle had used to assassinate Prince Marius.
“No,” she whispered to herself. “To attempt to assassinate him.”
She yanked her kerchief from her head. She wound her hair into a crown with a tie, then paced before the fire, still wearing a man’s breeches and top. The others would be arriving soon and would be disappointed that her long-planned mission had failed.
But had it? She may not have killed the prince, but the vampires now knew there was at least one peasant willing to risk her life to stand against them. It was a show of strength, and for that, she was proud.
After burying Henry and the vampire he’d killed, she and Deek had lain in wait in the nearby woods, expecting other Legionnaires to come and find their missing man. But no others had come. It had been a defining moment for Arabelle. To see her first lover—pale and dead—glassy eyes staring at nothing.
From then on, the woodhouse had become their headquarters as they stockpiled money and resources in a hidden basement, including the gold that Henry had begun to mine. When someone in the village mentioned it was coming on five years since the vampire prince had taken a new concubine, the real planning had begun.
“Good evenin’, Arabelle.” Barkley, the strong, stout wheat farmer, whose hair was as dry and yellow as the fields he farmed for a Sylus dowager, marched up with his donkey in tow then tied her off on a nearby tree limb.
“Good evening, Barkley. And Gertrude.” She walked up and patted the donkey on the neck right next to the black spot Nate had put there as she’d told him to do. She often worried that she included the little scamp in their plans and endangered one so young. But Nate was a wild one and refused to be left out when his father joined up. Motherless, the boy ran free, earning a coin or two in exchange for small chores and errands the day long. He could have eyes anywhere and no one would notice. She finally stopped refusing his aid.
“You’re the first to arrive.”
“Aye. And how are ye, girl? You look to still be alive.”
“I am.”
“Though I hear the prince is also still alive. Heard he was seen marchin’ into town.”
She bit her lip in agitation. “He is,” she verified. “But I believe my attempt may have done some damage still.”
“No doubt. Never seen the Legionnaires scramble in such a fuss. I’m still with ye, girl.”
“Hallo to all,” said Ivan.
“Hello,” said Evan, his brother.
The Barrow brothers worked in the fields for an estate in the next village over, a larger settlement called Hiddleston. They brought with them two more burly field hands.
One by one, the square around the fire filled with fifty strong men and women willing to take on the cause of the Black Lily. Arabelle swelled with pride at the growing numbers. There were more than those present who were faithful to the cause. Those who gathered wo
uld spread news that the Black Lily was coming. The breaker of chains would one day free them all.
She climbed inside the empty cart where she led their meetings, able to see everyone in the yard from above.
Glancing around, she frowned and called down to Barkley. “Where’s Deek?”
“Haven’t seen ’im.”
His absence was unusual. But she couldn’t stall any longer. These men couldn’t be seen missing for long.
Standing tall, she gazed out at the usual, hopeful faces. “Greetings, friends!”
A rousing whoop echoed back.
“By now, you all may have heard that I did indeed attempt to assassinate the high prince of Varis. But my attempt failed.”
A few mumblings. Having expected this reaction, she let them go for a moment, never dropping her chin or confident stance. She swallowed hard, letting go of any misgivings she might’ve had about her own failure and pushed onward with vigor, injecting steel in her words.
“But I did feel the keen satisfaction of stabbing my dagger straight through his body and hearing him howl in pain.”
Cheers erupted. She smiled at their enthusiastic support, even letting loose a small laugh herself.
“I am sorry that I missed his heart.” She met the gaze of the men and women in the crowd as she sobered her expression. “But I will not miss the second time.”
Another whoop of cheers and laughter.
“They know now that we are not afraid to stand up. I walked into their great Glass Tower, their beacon of power and strength, and I wounded their beloved prince.”
Quiet nods and murmurs of “aye” swept over the gathering.
“But that is not enough. Perhaps it is fate that I didn’t kill the vampire prince. For there is another opportunity quickly coming upon us.” They waited in silence. “The prince’s one hundredth birthday quickly approaches. As we all know, every Varis prince must marry a vampire princess on this day. Vampire royalty from every kingdom will flock here to the Glass Tower. And what road must every traveler take to the palace?”
“The road through Sylus!” shouted Ivan.
“That’s right,” said Arabelle with conviction, her fist in the air. “And the Black Lily will be waiting. If we cannot kill a vampire prince, let us kidnap the vampire princess!”
The Black Lily (Tales of the Black Lily) Page 7
